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Central High School woes related to lack of attention

Central High School woes related to lack of attention

Roger White deserves our thanks for the stellar work he has done as principal of Central High School, however, the logic in his article that appeared in the June 26 edition of The Daily Herald is less than stellar. Mr White lists 10 problems with the existing Central High building — only two have any significant connection with the age of the building. The other eight — “spiders, roaches, mold, leaks, rodents, temperature changes, peeling paint” and “smells” — are primarily caused by poor maintenance. All of these problems are likely to quickly reoccur in a new building if there is not a much greater commitment to building maintenance than currently exists.

The saddest part of the whole Central High saga is that the students and staff become the political pawns in the process. For at least 20 years, the Maury County Public School system has wasted time and money constructing excess building capacity system-wide while intentionally letting existing facilities, most notably Central High School, fall apart. The students and staff suffer while the politicians and administrators get feathers in their caps for building new buildings.

As if using students as pawns in the political wars over school buildings wasn’t bad enough, now many of our political leaders and even some of our school administrators want to make our students pawns in the industrial recruitment game as well. Building a school for the purpose of industrial recruitment is a huge mistake. Educating our students is a hard enough job as it is. We don’t need to add to that responsibility a requirement that our schools must drop what they are doing and put up a good front whenever a the latest busload of corporate tax incentive shoppers comes to town. Once we start down this road, there will be no end to the things schools will be asked to do in the name of “economic development,” and the resulting distraction from the real job of education will take its toll on our schools’ effectiveness.

After so many years of neglect, the Central building may be close to the point where replacing it makes economic sense, but it only makes sense if we lock in a reasonable replacement cost and a low interest rate on the required debt. Unfortunately, the measure up for consideration at next Monday’s County Commission meeting does neither.

Whatever the commission decides Monday, we, the voters of Maury County, need to go the polls in August (or July, if you prefer early voting) and elect school board members who understand they must adopt policies and hire and supervise the director of schools with the understanding that maintenance is a priority. “Major league” education palaces may be nice, but they are not required for excellent results. What is required is a commitment to provide schools that are clean, safe, well maintained and educationally effective, though not necessarily palatial, even if that means doing a good job of maintaining a building when for political reasons it might be more convenient to let it fall apart.

If we do not elect school board members who understand this principle, the Central High saga will repeat itself over and over again, and the losers will be the students, teachers and taxpayers.

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